adminhas seen innovation becoming increasingly central to competitiveness.
Innovation is the mechanism by which organisations produce the new products, processes, systems required for adapting to changing markets, technologies and modes of competition (Dougherty and Hardy; 1996)
As companies increasingly focus on innovation, the performance hurdles towards the road to success will increase considerably. For instance, if you introduce a new product into the market, you will be faced with escalating levels of commitment for your innovation to stay in the same position. Innovation isn’t about new products, it’s about changing behaviours.
Though innovation might be industry specific, successful innovation contains core elements and processes regardless of the industry or firm. High performing innovators are able to harness this innovation meta-capability to achieve outstanding performance. You, however, can’t talk of innovation in a culture that is bureaucratic and antipathetic to the concepts of risk, failure, exploration and discovery.
Most of the examples of great innovation of today are centred on the basic needs of emerging markets. Organisations need significant support system to penetrate such markets. Innovation is not technological breakthrough but is about knowledge breakthrough in terms of understanding what is needed for the market.
One would ask where do breakthrough ideas come from? Big ideas that result in innovative products or services spring from individuals, they are then incubated and developed with a very small group of like-minded innovators. Think of Apple’s Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive, or Twitter’s Jack Dorsey. I call this the “single mind method” where one seed is planted by an individual then flourishes by being nourished in the right environment, but ultimately still cared for through maturity by the original seed planter.
In Zimbabwe, we have the syndrome of development committees which take new ideas and throw them into “pits” with the misguided notion that many minds are better than just a few. I call this the ‘many mind method’ and it results in compromise in order to please the majority. Compromise leads to mediocrity and eventually the big idea dies down. If your company is going to successfully innovate, you need to hire and empower those individuals with big ideas. These must be given resources they need to develop those ideas but, most importantly, give them the freedom and authority to see their idea through to completion without the bureaucracy. Now, how many companies operate on this level?
Many companies I know have the tools they need to innovate (personnel, distribution, media, marketing, capital and technology) but simply do not exploit them. Many brilliant individuals leave their companies to start their own businesses because many organisations do not allow them to have the time or means to innovate. Innovation should be a part of everyday corporate culture and it should be allowed on all levels, not just at the executive level.
In fact, companies should allow moments throughout each week that are solely dedicated to innovation. Sit back and imagine all of the inventions that could be in our society if the entrepreneurs and innovators had the support they needed for their idea at the beginning of its conception versus years later.
Innovation can and should naturally be part of any company though by the very nature of being bureaucratic and deeply rooted in company culture this often does not happen. The more open-minded culture can leverage toward innovation. So can, big companies be innovative? Yes, but the drive to innovation has to be encouraged, pushed and supported from a management level and two things should be made clear to employees:
l You need to fail — The good and innovative ideas come through a process of trial and error and the errors should be encouraged in order to get the end-game of true innovation. There is a cost associated with this, but this is the inherent investment.
l Think big and act small — Giving small groups of the company or individuals the freedom to place themselves outside the corporate context both organisationally and possibly even physically outside the organisation to create the start-up atmosphere where any idea is considered, evaluated and not measured to the strict corporate goals.
The challenge is that most companies are largely composed of management that is risk averse, having reached their positions largely by “not making mistakes”. This is in contrast to small companies who exist to “de-risk” opportunities and technology. This involves, by definition, making mistakes, quickly re-adjusting and moving forward in a new direction.
Till next week — Remember that learning and innovation go hand in hand. The arrogance of success is to think that what you did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow — William Pollard .
May God richly bless you!!
Shelter Hamandishe-Chieza is a Management Consultant. She can be contacted at [email protected]
Online Reporter
dyton mupawaenda